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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 



OF 



Benson John Lossing, ll.d 



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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 



OF 



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Benson John Lossing, ll.d. 



Prepared for The Worcester Society of Antiquity 

BY 

NATHANIEL PAINE. 



f 



WORCESTER : 
PRIVATELY PRINTED, 

1892. 



Ens 



FIFTY COPIES. 



WORCESTER : 

PRIVATE PRESS OF FRANKLIN P. RICE. 

MDCCCXCII. 



Benson John Lossing, ll. d. 



Benson John Lossing, LL. D., who was elected an honorary 
member of The Worcester Society of Antiquity June 5, 1877, 
died at his home, "The (Chestnut) Ridge," Dover Plains, New 
York, June 3, 1891.* 

He was born at Beekman, Duchess County, New York, Febru- 
ary 12, 1 81 3, and descended from the Dutch. Pietre Pieterse 
Lassingh, who settled in Albany about 1658, was his ancestor in 
this country. His grandfather was Nicholas Lossing, a soldier of 
the revolution, his father was a small farmer who died when 
Benson was in his infancy. His mother, who was of Quaker 
parentage, died when he was about twelve years old. 

The loss of his father and mother made it necessary for him 
to earn his own living, and the little education he received, which 
was of the rudiments only, was acquired at the ordinary district 
schools in about three years. At thirteen years of age he was 
apprenticed to a watchmaker at Poughkeepsie, and it was while 
serving as an apprentice and learning the trade that he first be- 
came interested in historical matters, an odd volume of Gibbon's 
Rome found among some rubbish in the shop being the incentive 
and first inspiration in this line, in which he was destined to 
obtain an extended reputation as an historical writer. His 

*"The Ridge " is at Dover Plains on the Hudson River, sixteen miles 
east of Fishkill. The house was built in 181 1; the library is contained in 
a fire-proof building adjoining the house, where are over five thousand vol- 
umes of rare books, including many valuable historical autographs, and 
sketches made by Dr. Lossing of some of the principal actors in the Revolu- 
tion. 



apprenticeship, which lasted for seven years, was a severe one, he 
being required to work very incessantly, and having but little 
time for reading or study. He was not allowed to have a fire in 
the shop on Sundays, and in the severe winter weather was often 
obliged to remain in bed to keep warm while pursuing his studies. 
He was not even allowed paper on which to write, yet, notwith- 
standing these disadvantages, he contributed at the early age of 
sixteen, prose and poetry to the local newspaper. 

He made progress also in his trade, and at nineteen years of 
age manufactured an old-fashioned English clock, which remained 
in his possession and stood in his library. 

About the year 1830 he became a joint editor and proprietor 
of The Poughkeepsie Telegraph, and for six years kept up his 
connection with that enterprise. Afterwards he, with the assist- 
ance of two or three friends, started a semi-monthly newspaper 
called "The Casket," and assumed the editorial chair and wrote 
stories, poems, essays and editorials, in fact furnished nearly all 
of the reading matter. 

His interest in having appropriate illustrations to his various 
publications, which became so prominent in later years, seems 
to have started about this time, for he employed John A. Adams,* 
a wood-engraver of some note, to instruct him in the art, and by 
the closest application soon acquired proficiency in that work. 
In 1838 he removed to New York City, and in the basement of 
a boarding-house in Cortlandt street hung out his sign as an 
"Engraver on Wood," his expense for room and meals amount- 
ing to four dollars a week. E^r. Lossing says, that when he en- 
gaged in the vocation in New York the only wood engravers 
there were Alexander Anderson, Garret Lansing, J. A. Adams, 
B. F. Childs and R. N. White. 

Lossing's second order, after he started business in New York, 
was for a cut of the Rutgers Female College, which was given 

* J. A. Adams was a native of New Jersey, and a self-taught artist. He 
engraved many of the illustrations for "Harpers' Family Bible." He also 
engraved a portrait of the father of Dr. Anderson (the first wood engraver 
of New Yorlv City) for Dr. Lossing's Memoir of Anderson read before the 
New York Historical Society in 1870. 



him by Dr. J. Ferris, Chancellor of the University of New York. 
There was but little demand for wood engraving at this period, 
and it was some time before he had another customer, hardly 
earning enough to keep him from starving. Later he became the 
editor of, and made the illustrations for, "The Family Illustrated 
Magazine," the first fully illustrated periodical in the United 
States, for which he received three hundred dollars a year. He 
pursued the business of wood engraving for about thirty years, 
most of the time under the firm name of Lossing & Barritt. 

The first book prepared by Dr. Lossing was No. 103 of "Har- 
per's Family Library," an Outline History of the Fine Arts ; this 
was published in 1840. In 1845 he conceived the idea of visit- 
ing the historic localities of the war of the revolution, and 
making drawings of buildings and of other objects of interest 
which were then to be found in various parts of the original 
thirteen States of the Union. He suggested to Messrs. Harper 
& Brothers, in that year the publication of The Pictorial Field- 
Book of the Revolution, and they at once became interested in 
the plan, and advanced money to enable him to carry out his 
design. Lossing at once started on his travels in search of the 
necessary materials, returning from time to time with his sketches 
that he might make the drawings on the block for the engraver. 
In the meantime, in 1847, he prepared a History of the Revolu- 
tion in one octavo volume of some five hundred pages, which was 
written nights and completed in four months. 

His Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, a work which gave 
him a wide reputation, was completed in about five years, and 
published in 185 1 in two large octavo volumes of some fifteen 
hundred pages and a large number of illustrations. In the prep- 
aration of this great work Dr. Lossing travelled about nine thou- 
sand miles in the original thirteen States and Canada, in collecting 
the material which was used in its production. In 1868 he pro- 
duced a similar work on the War of 181 2, and one on the Civil 
War, in three volumes of two thousand pages and twelve hundred 
illustrations, the first volume being published in 1866, the last 
in 1868. In a letter to the writer of this notice, dated in Febru- 
ary, 1866, Dr. Lossing says : "I expect to leave in the course of 



a few days for a tour to the principal battle-fields of the late 
civil war, which will occupy, I suppose, about a hundred days." 
This will indicate the pains he took in preparing historical works 
and obtaining illustrations which add so much to their interest 
and value. 

Most of the engravings in his various works were made by Dr. 
Lossing himself, although in his later years he was assisted by his 
daughter. He spared neither labor nor pains in the preparation 
of these valuable volumes, and they are now recognized as his- 
torical works of more than common accuracy. 

In 1850 there appeared in the London Art Journal a series of 
very interesting illustrated articles on "The Hudson River from 
the Wilderness to the Sea," which was published in book form in 
1866. He also annotated Custis's Recollections of Washington 
at the request of Mrs. Robert E. Lee of Arlington, and about 
the same time prepared the volume entitled "The Home of 
Washington and its Associations," also fully illustrated. 

In 1876 Dr. Lossing wrote "The American Centenary" by re- 
quest of a Philadelphia publisher, working fourteen hours a day, 
writing and correcting the proofs with his own hands, and at the 
same time furnished sixty-four pages a month for "Our Country," 
a work published in parts. 

In 1870 he read before the New York Historical Society "A 
Memorial of Alexander Anderson, M. D., the First Engraver on 
Wood in America," which was privately printed in 1872. In 
1872-3-4 he edited the "American Historical Record," a maga- 
zine of much historical value. "Vassar College and its Founders" 
was written and illustrated by Dr. Lossing by desire of the Board 
of Trustees, of whom he had been one since the establishment of 
the college. Besides his series of historical and biographical 
works, which numbered forty-two, he wrote or edited many 
others of value. 

In 1855 he received the honorary degree of A. M. from Ham- 
ilton College, in 1870 the same degree from Columbia College, 
and that of LL. D. in 1873 from the University of Michigan. 
He was a member of the American Antiquarian Society, of 
the New York Historical Society, an honorary member of the 



New England Historic Genealogical Society, and an active or 
corresponding member of ten or twelve other historical or literary 
societies. 

Dr. Lossing's first wife was a daughter of Thomas Barritt, an 
Englishman who came to the United States about 1800 ; his 
second wife was a daughter of Nehemiah Sweet. 

He was a member of the Episcopal Church, and at one time 
was licensed to hold services, and read sermons to the farmers 
and their families in his neighborhood. He was "a courteous 
gentleman of the old school, an able scholar, a rare Christian en- 
nobled by a life of sincerity and worth." He writes of himself: 
" My life has been one of activity, and I hope useful, and I trust 
I have added a mite to the treasury of knowledge which will in 
some degree benefit my fellow beings." 

For much of the matter in the foregoing Memorial the writer 
wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Miss Helen R. M. 
Lossing, a daughter of Dr. Lossing ; also for aid in preparing 
the Bibhography of his works. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Outline history of the Fine Arts. 1840. 

Seventeen Hundred and Seventy-six. 1847. 

Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution. 1850-1852. 

Lives of the Presidents of the United States. 1847. 

Military Journal of two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775. 1855. 

The New World. 1847. 

Pictorial Description of Ohio. 1869, 

Biographical Sketches of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. 

1 848-1 854. 
The Marriage of Pocahontas. 

Pictorial History of the United States for Schools. 1857. 
The Cenotaph; or Brief Memoirs of Eminent Americans. 1855. 2d ed. 1881. 
Washington and the American Republic, London and New York, 3 V. 1871. 
The Life and Times of Philip Schuyler, 2 vols. 1860-1873. 
The Hudson from the Wilderness to the Sea. 1866. 
Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812. 1868. 

Pictorial Field-Book of the Civil War in America, 3 vols. 1866-1869. 
Family Pictorial History of the United States. 1857. 



8 

Vassar College and its Founders. 1867. 

Memoir of Lieut. John T. Greble. 1869. 

History of American Industries. 1878. 

History of England. 1871. 

History of our War with Great Britain. 

Memoir of Alexander Anderson, the First Engraver on Wood in the United 

States. 1870. 
The American Centenary. 1876 
Our Country. Illustrated by Darley, 3 vols. 1873. 
Story of the United States Navy, for Boys. 1881. 
Mount Vernon, the Home of Washington. 1879. 
Popular Clycopsedia of United States History. 1876. 
Biography of James A. Garfield. 1881. 
History of New York City. 1884. 
Mary and Martha Washington. 1886. 
The Two Spies — Nathan Hale and John Andre. 1886. 
The Empire State. 1887. 
Hours With Living Men and Women of the Revolution. 

At the time of his death he was engaged upon a work entitled "New York 
City; its Commerce and Industries." 

Besides the above work Dr. Lossing, in connection with the late Edwin 
Williams, compiled — 
The Statesman's Manual, 4 vols. 1858. 
The National History of the United States, 2 vols. 1855. 
A Sketch of Martha Washington. 
The League of States. 
First in Peace. 

He arranged and fully annotated — 
Custis's Recollections of Washington, i860. 

McFingal, an Epic Poem of the Revolution; by Trumbull. 1871. 
Diaries of Washington. 1859-1869. 

The Old Farm and New Farm; an allegory, by Francis Hopkinson. 1857. 
Poems by William Wilson, with a biography of the author. 

In addition to these labors he edited for three years "The American His- 
torical Record and Repertory of Notes and Queries." 



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